The peloton's newest bike: The Chinese X-Lab AD9 ridden by XDS Astana

Henok Mulubrhan's custom X Lab bike on some grass .

We're busy bringing you as many pro bike shots as we can from the Tour Down Under, which kicks off the brand-new 2025 race season. 

A full tech gallery is in the works, and you can already check out the brand-new Uno-X Mobility Ridley Noah Fast 3.0 which is being ridden in the women's race, but now we turn our attention to the newest bike in the WorldTour, one we are all still getting familiar with: the X-Lab AD9. 

As well as being a manufacturer, the Chinese X-Lab brand's parent company, XDS Carbon Tech, is also a title sponsor of the newly renamed XDS Astana Team. 

This particular bike belongs to Henok Mulubrhan, the 25-year-old Eritrean and three-time African Continental Champion, and X-Lab has given it a custom paint job to honour his title. 

It's almost a flip of the team bike's blue and black colour scheme, but the downtube has a lovely white and gold marbling effect which makes you look twice. 

Spec-wise, the team are pretty much using the same equipment they did last year when they were racing on Wilier bikes. The Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets remain, as do the Vision Metron 60SL wheels. Handlebars are the Vision Metron integrated model, which, you guessed it, is also unchanged from last year. 

One thing that has puzzled us over the last few weeks is a range of press shots showing the X-Lab bikes with both Continental and Vittoria tyres. The team bike is fitted with Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres here, like last year, but we wonder what the mix is about, maybe a swap is coming like the one that has gone on at Alpecin-Deceuninck as they switch from Vittoria to Pirelli. 

There's a fairly narrow headtube at the front of the AD9 and what looks like plenty of tyre clearance  (Image credit: Chris Auld )

A nice custom touch on the bike's top tube for the African Continental Champion, Mulubrhan (Image credit: Chris Auld )

There's a nice carbon fibre weave on the one-piece Vision Metron one-piece handlebar  (Image credit: Chris Auld )

The gold accents in the custom paint are complemented by the Vision wheel stickers  (Image credit: Chris Auld )

The fork legs have a serious aero profile at the dropouts that is unmissable. It's not dissimilar to the fork tabs on the Pinarello Dogma fork, but in this case even more pronounced (Image credit: Chris Auld )

The bottom bracket shell looks chunky and solid, which tends to result in a stiff and efficient platform  (Image credit: Chris Auld )

There's plenty of colour on the bike, this seat stay arrangement looks pretty familiar somehow  (Image credit: Chris Auld )

There's nothing to shout about here, it's just good to get a close-up look at a pro bike we don't know too much about right now  (Image credit: Chris Auld )

You know where you are with Dura-Ace, although this chain and cassette are looking a bit mucky if you ask us. Note the open Di2 charging cover too. (Image credit: Chris Auld )